Time and Light

So progress has been slow with the novel but I do remind myself that anything worth doing is worth taking time with. Lately “time” seems like the key word here. The cat has become an obstacle as she persists to be on my lap at any and every opportunity; she is in fact on my lap at this very moment. I was down for a time in March with a horrible case of stomach flu. Still have the cough; recovery takes time. Writing also is has it’s own demands of time and needs to be independent from the many potential distractions of the day. Distractions are good but again this is about budgeting my time. It is sometimes difficult to focus on research and writing when there are friends, and work, and music, and poetry all so very close at hand. Sometimes those distractions do, of course, prove to be where I should prioritize my time. Any writer will tell you that these are the juggling balls we choose to juggle.

 

Putting my poets hat on now I’ll like to tell you what the poetry means to me, why I write poetry.

For me poetry is not about writing what I see. Poetry is taking a snap shot of what I see, pressing the snap shot to glass, shining a light through the glass, and writing what is revealed in the lighted reflection. Not a photographic “negative” done in darkness but a literary “positive” done in light. Poetry is seeing another side of everything.

　
List
Every morning I get up out of bed,
make a pot of coffee,
and get myself a piece of paper.
At the top I write “50 things to do before you die”
It is, for the most part, a daily to-do list.
- do the dishes
- wash the car
- grocery shopping
Today I ran out of paper.

Peace;
Christine